40oz
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Post by 40oz on Apr 21, 2021 19:55:43 GMT -5
The catch phrases don't really work for me. I like a lot of women protagonists but something about Ion Fury's character doesn't sit well with me and I can't put my finger on it. She's basically a duke nukem 3D archetype (or any male build engine game star) with a woman skin on it. I don't really know what's wrong with her, she just feels like a female character in a game that probably doesn't have any women on staff.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 21, 2021 20:44:18 GMT -5
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dn
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the motherfucking darknation
Posts: 1,724 
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Post by dn on Apr 21, 2021 22:08:02 GMT -5
All FPS "characters" suck.
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Post by deathevokation on Apr 22, 2021 9:13:49 GMT -5
Good thing it's an old school fps game where the quality isn't affected by the character.
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Post by lunchlunch on Apr 22, 2021 10:39:06 GMT -5
Good thing it's an old school fps game where the quality isn't affected by the character. Yeah, the game is still fun. But the "quips" are cringe as hell, despite the voice actor's talent. And not cringe in an ironic Duke Nukem kind of way. |
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40oz
diRTbAg
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Post by 40oz on Apr 22, 2021 11:57:25 GMT -5
Yeah it's the voice lines mostly. It doesn't have much to do with the quality of the voice actress's voice, or the writing, even. Duke, Caleb, and Lo Wang add comedic effect to what are a pretty ridiculous line of games. This isn't to say that women can't be funny, except that Ion Fury is actually kinda cool and doesn't read to me like a funny game. I'm not really sure if the lines are supposed to be empowering or funny, but they don't read to me like they are either one. There's a warmness associated with goofy, overconfidence, when you hear it from a man that feels out of place when placed on a woman. There might be some additional weirdness associated with this over confidence in that a woman protagonist violently kills an all-male cast of adversaries. For the record, I get a little bit of queasiness from games where I'm a male protagonist killing women adversaries too. I most prefer the non-binary look of aliens, robots, and monsters lol.
Shooters with a female lead is actually really cool and relatively new and undersaturated territory, so the catch phrases seem to kinda let the experience down in that way by underselling the coolness of it, if that makes any sense.
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Post by optimus on Apr 22, 2021 12:12:39 GMT -5
Well, it's a badass soldier fighting other bad dudes so I wouldn't know how to write it better.
On the other hand, all these indie FPS are mimicking what is considered cool in the past. People remember Duke Nukem's voice as what defined the game. Personally, I was immersed in the game level design (which was enhanced with extra paths through underwater, breakable walls, jetpack, portals, floor sorta above floor, and also extra interactivity (gimmicky?)) that was way more than Doom. In Doom I remember the level design too. People remember the "cool" elements like Rip and Tear (which was just in a comic). So, to sell it as a cool game, they have to have a badass character. But I never cared of the character in Ion Fury, I forgot about her. There is nothing, it's empty (and maybe it's ok because I can focus on the FPS play and exploration), it's the same caricature as Duke Nukem was.
But it's an interesting question how to write a female character, what different approaches there are, although you won't find it in an oldschool FPS who doesn't try to be serious.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 22, 2021 12:32:29 GMT -5
Yeah, Duke Nukem had cool levels - indeed, this underwater stuff, enemies with their gimmics (pig cops going prone), indeed those underwater paths, shrinking character size and having to crawl through a passageway before you unshrink, those scary as fuck parasites that attached themselves to you, etc. At the same time, I couldn't quite get his remarks at the age I played because I was still learning English then.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 22, 2021 19:10:53 GMT -5
The only somewhat old-school FPS that leaps to mind is the No One Lives Forever series. Those games were actually fairly cool, possibly even underrated and under-appreciated, despite favorable reviews at the time of release. I own them both and I played through both fairly recently. The protagonist chick manages to be hot, classy, and an effective combatant without coming off as an overbearing political cuntbag. Well done, Monolith!
On topic, I've yet to play this game, but the screenshots certainly look good.
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Post by joe-ilya on Apr 22, 2021 19:28:25 GMT -5
Not much can be done about that, but you can disable her talk in the options if you want a modest, silent protagonist like classic Doomguy.
Only other option I can see is Lester The Unlikely.
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dn
Body Count: 02
the motherfucking darknation
Posts: 1,724
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Post by dn on Apr 22, 2021 21:21:24 GMT -5
From this fixation with the self (and the boring minutiae and daily chores that make up the inner-landscape of the self) came the tradition of monologuing hard-boiled everyman heroes (film noir etc.) and - eventually, and mostly accidentally - story telling in FPS computer games. See, the free and indirect speech of modernist / hard-boiled fiction is basically designed to replicate the inner-dialogue that all us wonderful non-npcs have ongoing inside their skull. Since Doom has a story that is basically retarded and intrudes 0% upon the actual experience of, you know, playing the fucking game, players who wrap themselves up tend to have their own little inner-monologue going with themselves whilst playing. This - like Modernist free indirect speech - aids immersion. In non-wanky non-academic terms, it feels more *real*. Or - and this is what people are getting pissed with and apparently struggling to articulate - you can take that ambiguity that forces your imagination to work with (and participate in) and toss it in a dumpster, replacing it with fucking cutscenes about some bullshit Doomslay3r and his arch-angel buddies. See, when you're getting told how the story *is* rather than inventing it in your own head according to stimuli presented by the game, well, that means immersion is broken. We're not talking about you as director, writer and character in your own play anymore: you're just playing a part, a poor actor on a stage filled with farts and thunder. |
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